Thursday, January 14, 2021

PARADISE COVE (Pen & Paper Theatre Company/Show Face Festival)***

 

By Sophie

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdG5pO1d4TI&feature=emb_logo

Available until: Unknown

A tragedy can affect a whole community and it can be difficult for that community to move on and recover.

But Paradise Cove has not only recovered. It is thriving.

It opens with someone warming up in order to give a speech. It’s a beautiful speech in a beautiful voice. It’s warm. It’s positive. It’s inspiring.

But we only see the person’s mouth. In other words, we’re not seeing the full picture.

Or not yet.

Paradise Cove is a 13-minute play written by Jordan Forse. It’s fascinating and unsettling at the same time. Everything sounds really positive and there are moments of normality which seem very relatable, but there is a definite sense that something is at least slightly off-kilter. Emilie Largier echoes this in her direction, with the extreme close-up at the beginning and later some split-screen effects.

The main character, Suzie, is played by two people. Nancy Fox portrays her mind and acts as a sort of narrator, looking back over the past and commenting almost defiantly on the action, disturbing but surprisingly charismatic. Ellen Larson plays Suzie’s more uncertain body, acting out the situation Suzie Mind is describing. The decision to split them is dramatically interesting. They do seem like two different people. A Before and an After, perhaps.

Elaine McAdam isn’t properly seen, but with her voice alone, you know what you need to know about both her characters, the Principal Magistrate and the Enforcement Officer.

This is an intriguing film and I am left with the nagging feeling that I might have missed the point completely, but it’s fascinating to watch.

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